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to ourselves in sudden surprises of every sort.
Her application to a sober life, and industrious management at last in Virginia, with her transported spouse, is a story fruitful of instruction to all the unfortunate creatures who are obliged to seek their re-establishment abroad, whether by the misery of transportation, or other disaster; letting them know that diligence and application have their due encouragement, even in the remotest part of the world, and that no case can be so low, so despicable, or so empty of prospect, but that an unwearied industry will go a great way to deliver us from it, will in time raise the meanest creature to appear again in the world, and give him a new cast for his life.
These are a few of the serious inferences which we are led by the hand to in this book, and these are fully sufficient to justify any man in recommending it to the world, and much more to justify the publication of it.
There are two of the most beautiful parts still behind, which this story gives some idea of, and lets us into the parts of them, but they are either of them too long to be brought into the same volume; and indeed are, as I may call them, whole volumes of themselves, viz., 1. the life of her governess, as she calls her, who had run through, it seems in a few years, all the eminent degrees of a gentlewoman, a whore, and a bawd; a midwife, and a midwife keeper, as they are called; a pawnbroker, a child-taker, a receiver of thieves, and of stolen goods; and in a word, herself a thief, a breeder up of thieves, and the like, and yet at last a penitent.
The second is the life of her transported husband, a highwayman; who it seems lived a twelve years’ life of successful villainy upon the road, and even at last came off so well as to be a volunteer transport, not a convict; and in whose life there is an incredible variety.
But, as I said, these are things too long to bring in here, so neither can I make a promise of their coming out by themselves.
We cannot say indeed, that this history is carried on quite to the end of the life of this famous Moll Flanders, for nobody can write their own life to the full end of it, unless they can write it after they are dead: but her husband’s life being written by a third hand, gives a full account of them both, how long they lived together in that country, and how they came both to England again, after about eight years, in which time they were grown very rich, and where she lived, it seems, to be very old; but was not so extraordinary a penitent, as she was at first; it seems only that indeed she always spoke with abhorrence of her former life, and of every part of it.
In her last scene at Maryland and Virginia, many pleasant things happened, which makes that part of her life very agreeable, but they are not told with the same elegancy as those accounted for by herself; so it is still to the more advantage that we break off here.
CHAPTER 1 The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders
My true name is so well known in the Records or Registers at Newgate, and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things of such consequence still depending there, relating to my particular conduct, that it is not to be expected I should set my name or the account of my family to this work; perhaps after my death it may be better known, at present it would not be proper, no, not though a general pardon should be issued, even without exceptions of persons or crimes.
It is enough to tell you, that as some of my worst comrades, who are out of the way of doing me harm, having gone out of the world by the steps and the string (as I often expected to go), knew me by the name of Moll Flanders; so you may give me leave to go under that name till I dare own who I have been, as well as who I am.
I have been told, that in one of our neighbour nations, whether it be in France, or where else, I know not, they have an order from the king, that when any criminal is condemned, either to die, or to the galleys, or to be transported, if they leave any children, as such are generally unprovided for, by the forfeiture of their parents, so they are immediately taken into the care of the government, and put into an hospital called the House of Orphans, where they are bred up, clothed, fed, taught, and when fit to go out, are placed to trades, or to services, so as to be well able to provide for themselves by an honest industrious behaviour.
Had this been the custom in our country, I had not been left a poor desolate girl without friends, without clothes, without help or helper, as was my fate; and by which I was not only exposed to very great distresses, even before I was capable either of understanding my case or how to amend it, but brought into a course of life, scandalous in itself, and which in its ordinary course tended to the swift destruction both of soul and body.
But the case was otherwise here, my mother was convicted of felony for a petty theft scarce worth naming, viz., borrowing three pieces of fine Holland of a certain draper in Cheapside: the circumstances are too long to repeat, and I have heard them related so many ways that I can scarce tell which is the right account.
However it was, they all agree in this, that my mother pleaded her belly, and being found quick with child, she was respited for about seven months; after which she was called down, as they term it, to her former judgement, but obtained the favour afterwards of being transported to the plantations, and left me about half a year old; and in bad hands you may be sure.
This is too near the first hours of my life, for me to relate anything of my self but by hearsay; it is enough to mention, that as I was born in such an unhappy place, I had no parish to have recourse to for my nourishment in my infancy, nor can I give the least account how I was kept alive; other than that, as I have been told, some relation of my mother took me away, but at whose expense, or by whose direction, I know nothing at all of it.
The first account that I can recollect, or could ever learn of myself, was that I had wandered among a crew of those people they call gypsies, or Egyptians; but I believe it was but a little while that I had been among them, for I had not had my skin discoloured, as they do to all children they carry about with them, nor can I tell how I came among them, or how I got from them.
It was at Colchester in Essex, that those people left me; and I have a notion in my head, that I left them there (that is, that I hid myself and would not go any farther with them), but I am not able to be particular in that account; only this I remember, that being taken up by some of the parish officers of Colchester, I gave an account that I came into the town with the gypsies, but that I would not go any farther with them, and that so they had left me, but whither they were gone that I knew not, for though they sent round the country to enquire after them, it seems they could not be found.
I was now in a way to be provided for; for though I was not a parish charge upon this or that part of the town by law; yet as my case came to be known, and that I was too young to do any work, being not above three years old, compassion moved the magistrates of the town to take care of me, and I became one of their own as much as if I had been born in the place.
In the provision they made for me, it was my good hap to be put to nurse, as they call it, to a woman who was indeed poor, but had been in better circumstances, and who got a little livelihood by taking such as I was supposed to be, and keeping them with all necessaries, till they were at a certain age, in which it might be supposed they might go to service, or get their own bread.
This woman had also a little school, which she kept to teach children to read and to work; and having, I say, lived before that in good fashion, she bred up the children with a great deal of art, as well as with a great deal of care.
But which was worth all the rest, she bred them up very religiously also, being herself a very sober, pious woman, (2) very housewifely and clean, and, (3) very mannerly, and with good behaviour: so that excepting a plain diet, coarse lodging, and mean clothes, we were brought up as mannerly as if we had been at the dancing school.
I was continued here till I was eight years old, when I was terrified with news that the magistrates (as I think they called them) had ordered that I should go to service; I was able to do but very little wherever I was to go, except it was to run of errands, and be a drudge to some cook-maid, and this they told me of often, which put me into a great fright; for I had a thorough aversion to going to service, as they called it, though I was so